


Smoke

by odalisque (fifteenstitches)



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, M/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-03
Updated: 2013-02-03
Packaged: 2017-11-28 03:15:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/669648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fifteenstitches/pseuds/odalisque
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You don’t believe in anything,” he’d said, and Grantaire had replied with slow insurance; Enjolras remembers the burning in his eyes that he’d come to associate with alcohol, but now he thinks maybe that’s just Grantaire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smoke

**Author's Note:**

> I haven’t got to them in the brick yet so characterisation is what I've picked up from the musical/film/etc
> 
> yep

(“Let all who wish to, go from here.” And for the first time the creeping doubt, the slow cold trickle of fear down his back; not fear for his life - he’d sold that to liberty long ago - but fear that he’d led them here, this small band of followers, he, with his vision and passion and bright red belief in a better future, had swept them up in a wildfire of unfaltering determination and brought them here to die. He looks around and his heart sinks; for the first time since this began, he wishes they hadn’t listened to him. He wishes they would leave, when he knows as sure as the steady drumbeat of his heart, that they will not.)

“You don’t believe in anything,” he’d said, and Grantaire had replied with slow insurance; Enjolras remembers the burning in his eyes that he’d come to associate with alcohol, but now he thinks maybe that’s just Grantaire.

(They all believed in Enjolras and that is what had brought them to the barricade, and Enjolras wants to scream because that was never what this was supposed to be about. He was insignificant, a dust speck, blinded by the glory of freedom and hope; _that_ was what they were fighting for, and if no-one else could feel it, _taste_ it like he could then why -

why were they all throwing themselves into death for him?)

The last night, the night before the end, and Enjolras still believes they have a chance. He’s tried to stay off the wine, focus - tomorrow he must be bright and fierce and carry a revolution - but then Grantaire is at his side with a bottle in his hand and everyone else seems to have retired for the night and the room glows with the heat from the fireplace and the burning, burning embers that are Grantaire’s eyes.

(It’s the people, the people, the people who they’re dying for, who wouldn’t come to their aid; Enjolras tries to understand but all he feels is horror and frustration. He’s always said that fear is forbidden, that to die in the fight for freedom would be the only way to go, but staring around now at the trust and resignation in the faces of his friends it suddenly seems like he’s the one pulling the trigger.)

Grantaire’s palm on his wrist feels like fire and his mouth tastes of wine and spices. Enjolras pushes him off uncertainly and says there’s bigger things to consider, and Grantaire whispers, “last chance before the storm,” and Enjolras thinks it’s a storm of his making and his heart is pounding that he’s right, he’s right, he’s right.

There are lips like velvet on his skin and Enjolras lets his eyes fall closed. It’s the least he can do. Breaths rising and falling in sync, he lets Grantaire lead him to the fire as he has lead Grantaire everywhere else. When there’s nothing between them but musky whispers and smoke he opens his eyes and inhales, and it’s almost as if time has slowed to nothing and he won’t have to fight for the dawn after all.

(At the end he is glad, glad to have done just one thing for a person and not an ideal. Grantaire’s palm is hot in his and he can feel his pulse, heightened, and if fear is forbidden then this is elation.)


End file.
